As It Should Be
by edelweiss123
Summary: The Girl Who Came Back has lived up to her name, and returned to save the Doctor in his darkest hour. But she didn't come back alone. And their separation has changed her, in more ways than one. She has a story of her own now. S4 AU Reunionfic, 10/Rose.
1. Voodoo Child

_Hello, and welcome to my first Doctor Who fic, "As It Should Be", because dagnabbit, this is how it should have happened. Assume everything happened as normal for most of S3. I know there are a million reunionfics out there, but this won't simply be a retelling of S4 plus Rose-what's the point of an AU if you don't shake things up a little?_

_Disclaimer: Does it need saying?_

o0o0o0o0o

In a darkened alley, two figures appeared in a crack and a flash of blue light, where they immediately collapsed to their knees.

"Ohhhhh…..I am never going to get used to that," the shorter of the two groaned, gripping his stomach. The woman at his side wasn't fairing much better and, after shaking off the effects herself, shot him a sympathetic grin.

"Let's hope not," the blonde chuckled. "If we're where we should be, our transportation should be getting an upgrade soon." The boy, who looked to be just now growing into the longer limbs of adolescence, nodded at her as she pushed herself to her feet.

"Can you feel her nearby?" The redhead asked as the woman held out her hand to help him stand. Grunting, he brushed the dirt from his jeans. The woman frowned, suddenly completely still, except for her head, which she turned from side to side, as if listening for something in the distance.

"I….don't know," she admitted, worry in her eyes. The boy looked at her in disbelief.

"You don't _know_? How? I mean, she's either here or she's not, right? Or maybe she _was_ here…will be here…and now she's not? I thought you said you'd be able to tell right away?" The woman sighed, rubbing a hand across her face, then looked to the boy wearily.

"I could. Can. Usually. And…I _can_ hear her, but it's….." she bit her lip, finally looking out from the alley and into the empty street before them. "Wrong." She slowly moved the mouth of the alley, the boy following.

"How do you mean?" He gripped her forearm lightly, pulling her hand away from her mouth. She twisted her arm to clasp his hand, looking him straight in the eye, and the worry there made his heart drop.

Swallowing, he looked away and tugged her out from the alley, looking out at the nearly deserted streets, the looming buildings, the grey sky—oh so familiar, but not. He was certain this was London—maybe not the London he knew, but close enough—but there was something else in the air that was just _off_ about this place that had nothing to do with the fact that he'd never technically been here before.

On the sidewalk to their right, a small crowd was huddled outside a shop window. With a wordless agreement, the two slowly started walking towards them, hoping to get some clue about what was going on. Still distracted, he pulled her attention back to him.

"Well?" He prompted. She gripped his hand tighter and looked straight ahead, talking lowly.

"It's….I can hear her but it's _wrong_. She isn't supposed to sound like that. She—she sounds like….like she's hurt or sick or…." She shivered, whispering, "…dying…." The boy gulped, walking a little faster past the rows of campaign posters plastered haphazardly on the wall beside them towards the huddle of people.

"Then we _really _need to find her fast, yeah?" He whispered urgently. She merely squeezed his hand again. Stopping unobtrusively behind the crowd of people, they peered over their shoulders to see a wide-screen TV in the shop window, playing some kind of political broadcast. There were two men standing at a podium—what appeared to be the Prime Minister, off to the side, and speaking, the American President.  
"-stand before you today as ambassador for humanity, a role I will undertake with the utmost solemnity. Perhaps our Toclafane cousins can offer us much, but what is important is not that we gain material—"

"Toclafane?" The boy asked quietly. The woman only shook her head.

"-stars, he has wondered what mysteries they hold. Now we know we are not alone. No longer—"

"They're….I think they're the welcoming committee for a group of aliens," she noted quietly in disbelief. The boy looked up at her, just as surprised.

"Public contact? Now? You're positive you got the time right?" Without even looking away from the screen, she nodded.

"No mistake, this is early 21st Century London. _My_ London," she added after a moment. The boy sighed.

Sudden clapping, laughs, gasps and cheering, both from the television and the small crowd in front of them, caused them both to focus back on the screen just as four odd metal spheres appeared in the air behind the President. The woman sucked in a breath.

"What? You recognize them?" The boy asked quickly, quietly. She shook her head, a deep frown set in her jaw.

"Not exactly, but….well. Call me prejudiced, but I've never met a living being in a metal shell that hasn't tried to kill me," she confessed with a pointed look. The boy shivered. The nightmares were not his own, but he'd heard the stories many, many times.

He also trusted the woman beside him would know exactly what to do about them.

There was some kind of commotion on the screen as the Prime Minister suddenly pushed aside the President to stand at the podium himself, grinning madly.

"Oh, all right then. It's me. Ta da! Sorry, sorry, I have this effect. People just get obsessed. Is it the smile? Is it the aftershave? Is it the capacity to laugh at myself? I don't know. It's crazy."

"Crazy is right," the boy muttered.

"This is about to go utterly pear-shaped, I can just tell…" the woman groaned.

Sure enough, not a second later they watched in horror as the President was blasted into pieces by one of the Toclafane. There were more gasps and screams from the crowd in front of them, jostling for a closer view of the events unfolding, and the pair lost sight of the screen for a moment. When they got a clear view a few seconds later, the boy felt the woman beside him choke, stiffen; gripping his hand now so hard it was painful. Before he could get a good look at what had scared her so, she pulled on his arm and _ran_ back to the alley.

"We need to go. _Now,_" she bit out. He nodded, knowing she would tell him when time wasn't of the essence.

They nearly fell into the alley when they reached it, the sharp tang of vortex travel still lingering in the air. The woman immediately began adjusting the settings of the thick-banded device on her wrist, talking urgently to the boy beside her.

"I don't know who that man really is or what the Toclofane are or even what's really going on, but I do know three things," she finished adjusting the bracelet and clasped the boys hands in both of hers, looking him straight in the eyes. He met her fierce look with grim determination. Whatever happened next, happened.

"One," she continued, "that man has the TARDIS. I don't know how, or why, but whatever it is he's doing, it's hurting her immensely. Two, he has the Doctor."

The boy sucked in a sharp breath. So that had been what she saw. Given that information, the inhuman light that spilled into her eyes was no surprise to him as she declared,

"And three: We are going to save them, no matter what. Ready, Tony?" As if she needed to ask.

"Always, Rose," he smirked. With a fierce grin in return, she let go with one hand and slammed the button down on her bracelet, and with another flash of light, the alley was empty once more.

o0o0o0o0o

This time the pair landed hard in what appeared to be a metal corridor. The faint humming of engines told them it was likely a ship of some sort, but those observations were ignored for the moment as they tried to find where they'd misplaced their stomachs.

"Gah, twice in ten minutes….'s even worse…." Nonetheless, the redhead stood, knowing he'd have to wait to be sick later. Rose was already up and running, apparently knowing the way. He followed her without hesitation, glad that there seemed to be no guards shooting at them. Yet.

She didn't pause as she turned right at the end of the corridor, only coming to a halt in front of an unobtrusive metal door, which was mercifully unlocked. She pushed it open and they both ran in, both stopped, and both gasped at the sight in front of them, though for different reasons.

Despite never having seen it before, Tony recognized the TARDIS right away, having grown up on stories of the wondrous ship all his life. It really did look rather ordinary, but it was as if he could feel the presence of the sentient ship, even from outside. And maybe he could. After everything else, it really wouldn't surprise him.

Rose however, had only paused for a moment, and was now tenderly running her hand down the front panel of the police box like she was greeting a long-lost friend. Which, he realized, was exactly what she was doing.

"I know, I missed you, I'm so sorry, I'll fix it, I will…" she whispered to the ship fervently. Bursting back into motion, she ripped the TARDIS key from her Vortex Manipulator and opened the doors wide, crying out as she was suddenly bathed in a harsh red light.

"Oh, what have they _done_ to you?" she half-sobbed as she bolted inside, Tony following close behind. Having already known that she was bigger on the inside, his attention was instead drawn to the horrible cage-like contraption that surrounded the center console. There was also a loud humming in his head that made his eyes water.

"What—what _is _that?" he gasped out. Rose was crying in earnest, though she did not touch the device.

"I—I don't know but it's hurting her, it's _killing_ her and she's _screaming_ in pain—can't you hear her screaming?" She choked out.

"I—I hear _something_ and it hurts, but—" suddenly, the humming in his head increased, the lights flared brighter, something on the metal cage shifted into place, and Rose fell to her knees with a strangled yell.

"_Rose_!" He ran forward, gripping her arms to try to pull her up, but she held his arms back, face contorted into a rictus of pain, eyes closed as she spoke to him.

"Tony, there's not much time—I have to get this thing off of her _now_. Whatever it's meant to do has already started and we need to stop it as soon as possible." He gripped the arms gripping his.

"How? What do we do?" She shuddered, shaking her head.

"That's not 'we', that's just 'me'," she corrected.

"But—"

"Because I need you to do something else, something very dangerous and Tony if I had any other choice I'd take it, but we don't have time." She let go of his arm, still not looking at him as she dug into her bag and produced a familiar bronze object, placing it into his hands. The metal felt cool against his sweaty palms.

"You can't be here while I destroy this thing, because you—" she looked up at him then, and the very literal golden light of her eyes made the moisture on his skin freeze, "are going to take this and _you—_" she continued as she stood and took off her Vortex Manipulator, passing it to him, "are going to save the Doctor. Still have your perception filter?" He nodded tersely. "That has enough charge left to give you about five minutes of stealth once you activate it—_don't_ use it until you absolutely have to. Understand?"

He nodded again and she swept him up in a hug—brief, fierce, and just long enough to lift him slightly off his feet—but he was down again a second later. She squeezed his shoulders.

"You'll come back safe." It was half plea, half order. He nodded to both.

"To you." _You'll be there to come back to_.

They said no more, no "I love yous", because they weren't saying goodbye. With one last look, Tony ran off, shutting the door behind him.

o0o0o0o0o

With Tony gone, Rose took a deep breath. The TARDIS was still screaming inside her head, and she knew she had to push her worries for her loved one's safety to the back of her mind. The longer she waited to destroy the machine, the more damage that man and his Toclofane minions could do. With another deep breath, she dove deep in her mind, the last whole branches of the TARDIS' consciousness moving right alongside her, until they arrived at a glowing, golden door.

_Tell me how to save you._

Together, they opened the door.

And let the wolf in.

o0o0o0o0o

Tony entered the room almost casually, though he was anything but. The scene before him was chaos—dignitaries and civilians alike were cowering on their knees, armed guards surrounding them with weapons drawn and ready. An awful pop song was blasting from the speakers, providing a surreal counterpoint to the blood red sky and the millions of Toclafane he could see swarming past through the far window. Standing at the window, backs turned, he could see the Prime Minister and his wife, pointing excitedly towards the hoard of metal monsters descending from the sky. Just behind them were three figures, sprawled in various states across the raised platform next to the podium. There was a pretty, frantic black woman, speaking in hushed tones to…

_Oh, god, Jack_!

If he was here, that must mean…

Sure enough, the third figure was dressed in red converse, pinstripes, and a long, dark coat. But his _face…_

_I'm too late, they've done something to him…_

Stomach clenching at the sight of the withered Doctor—for it had to be the Doctor—he slowly started making his way across the room, keeping to the wall and making no sudden movements. He didn't have much longer until the battery on his Manipulator ran out, and thus, his Perception Filter. He needed to get over to his target before that happened.

Luckily, the guards seemed to be otherwise occupied and it was relatively easy to slip around them. He was more than halfway there when a guard looked up at him and he froze. Thankfully, the filter worked its' magic and the guards eyes slipped right past him…and onto the black woman, who had just stood and was about to teleport away. He tackled her to the ground. The Doctor yelled "Martha!" Jack just cursed, and a moment later pair of guards had him, too.

The Prime Minister turned at the sudden commotion, spotted the teleporter on the woman's arm, and became enraged. Then as soon as it appeared, it vanished, displaced by a manic grin as he glanced between the restrained woman and the prone form of the Doctor.

"Oh-ho-_ho_, Doctor! Now were you about to send your little pet away? What exactly were you going to have her do, now, hmm?" The Prime Minister turned around to face the prone Doctor to taunt him, which meant his back was now facing Tony.

His mistake.

_Ten seconds left on the filter_.

As he stepped forward, a sense of calm washed over him. He knew what he had to do. The music was just fading as he pressed the cold, metal barrel onto the exposed neck of the Minister. The room now quiet, everyone froze as they heard a soft, distinct _click_. The man in front of him stood perfectly still.

"Don't. Move."

o0o0o0o0o

The Doctor thought his hearts might stop as he heard the tell-tale sound of a gun being chambered and his oldest enemy went from taunting him to completely blank-faced.

"Don't. Move," an unfamiliar voice ordered. Positioned the way he was with the Master in front of him, he couldn't see who it was that brought everything to a standstill, but the voice was smooth, calm, and horrifyingly _young_.

Everything was going wrong. He'd had a plan—a last one, a desperate one, but it had been nipped in the bud when Martha had been caught before she could get away. He'd been frantically trying to think of any other way to do something in this, admittedly, very helpless position, when this mystery man—_child—_had come out of _nowhere_ and put a _gun_ to the Master's head. As much as he hated them, it gave him precious minutes to come up with Plan C. Well, technically, it was Plan H but….

The boy was speaking again, calm as before, with even a hint of amusement. "Unless, of course, you think you can disable me before my little trigger finger twitches. Oh, and I don't think your guards are exactly in any position to fire, either. Not without hitting you. I'm awfully short, you see—you're a much bigger target."

Raising a single eyebrow, the Master echoed his calm amusement, though he addressed the Doctor. "My, my, my, you _are_ full of surprises. Conscripting children to your little band of merry men, handing them weapons? And here I thought I knew you so well. Well played, very…_dirty_."

The Doctor opened his mouth to protest that he had nothing to do with this—and why was his insane friend always _flirting_ with him?! It was disturbing—but an undignified snort beat him to it.

"Conscripted, nice. No, I'm more of a…freelancer, I guess you could say. Just doing a little _pro bono_ work for a chance at joining the dream team."

"Are you now?" The Master asked mildly, addressing the person threatening his life for the first time.

"Yeah. Been on my own for awhile now. Well. I say on my own, but I have a friend. I'm sure she's around here somewhere, and her Perception Filter had a lot more juice than mine. Which is why she is on the other side of the room, ready to blast you if I happen to miss. I won't, of course, but it's certainly comforting."

Predictably at this declaration, every head but the Master's swiveled around the room, trying to locate the second shooter, including the Doctor. Of course, if what the boy said was true, if his companion was standing still with a fully functioning Perception Filter, they'd never find her until it was too late.

The Master started chuckling, quietly at first, until it rose to full out laughter. He wiped a tear from his eye, and every guard in the room tensed as the boy pressed the weapon a little more firmly to his head.

"Oh, this is _marvelous_! This plan isn't half bad! Mind you," he continued conversationally, as if they were two old friends chatting over tea, "if you somehow _do_ manage to put a bullet through my head—which would be a shame, really, because I rather like it—after I immediately regenerate, if you're still alive, I'll make sure you _and _your little friend have a place of honor in the cell right next to this freak of nature," he declared as he kicked a foot into the still-prone form of Jack.

"Now, now, let's not be hasty," the voice said soothingly. "Time Lord. Do you really think I'd be holding a _normal_ gun to your head? I mean, who said anything about bullets? Bullets are dull. I've always been one for flash, me, and the barrel pressed against your head belongs to my lovely Psychokinetic Wavelength Disintegrator. Even if you regenerate, I wonder how long it'll take you to find your mind? Well, what's left of it, anyway. Personally, I think you've already misplaced a piece or three."

The Master chuckled again. "Oh, but it's great fun, being mad. For instance, doing this!" The Master turned suddenly to face the boy, who had backed up a step, but held his aim steady, now pointed at the madman's forehead. The guards had all raised their weapons again, but made no move to fire. The boy and the Time Lord faced each other calmly, studying each other.

The other Time Lord in the room took this opportunity to study the mysterious child, now that the Master had moved out of the way. He was as young as he sounded, barely a teenager, thin with gangly limbs and hands just slightly too large for his body. His dark red hair fluffed out at all angles, and his cheeks were lightly dusted with freckles, set beneath achingly familiar hazel eyes…

_Could it…no…_

Avoiding that thought entirely, his eyes moved down—the boy was dressed in a deep brown leather bomber jacket over an olive green jumper, narrow legs covered in well-worn jeans and feet clad in—if he did so say himself—a rather dashing pair of brown converse.

After his quick analysis, he was left with the feeling that the boy was somehow a complete stranger, yet so, so, familiar…..

The Master huffed. "Well now. I spent a good year and a half preparing for this day, and I've never seen you before in my life. I don't have anything _prepared_ for you!" He wailed, spreading his hands wide. "I feel like such a _terrible_ host! Lucy, my dear, surely you have something for him, don't you?"

The Doctor tried to shout out a warning, but it was too late. Lucy Saxon had come up behind the boy and pressed her own gun between his shoulder-blades. The boys eyes widened, and he saw him swallow, but his face settled back into a calm mask a moment later.

The Master giggled. "Oh, but this is too much _fun_! A regular Christmas bash! Ready to paint the town red? Well, everything, red. Red, red, red, all over—such a lovely color, don't you think? Red and green you'll be, child, isn't that marvelous?"

The boy only raised an eyebrow, tilting his gun slightly. "Yeah, I get it, you wanna spill my blood everywhere. Fine. But in case you're forgetting, the second any gun is fired, I squeeze this down and your mind gets ripped apart. Even if I miss, if I die, my friend won't. I know you're mad, but, do you really like those odds?" The Master grinned wider.

"I _love_ those odds! You see, it's all well and dandy that you—and your supposed friend—have two guns trained on me. But seeing as there's a gun at your back as well, and about twenty more besides, all trained on you, I'm betting there's a good chance you—and your supposed friend—get made into swiss cheese before you even think to pull the trigger. And speaking of your supposed friend, I really am starting to doubt she exists; surely she would have made a move to gain the upper hand, by now."

The boy only smiled softly. "Oh, she's real all right. And I have a feeling she's making her move right about now, so all of this won't matter much in a moment." The Master snorted.

"A feeling? You're waiting for her to save you? So your role was only a distraction."

He shrugged. "Of sorts." The Master moved closer, his forehead pressed right up against the barrel of the gun. The Doctor couldn't see his old enemy's eyes, but he wondered how the child could stare into such raw madness and not flinch.

"This—faith—of yours is pointless, you know," he growled. "You're going to die, painful and slow, and your friend can do nothing. Such a _human_ sentiment, trusting blindly that another will help you, it's pitiful." The Master raised his arm, instructing his soldiers to take aim, eyes never leaving the boy's as he growled. "Go on, then. Pray, hope, believe—conjure up something to stop the bullets, save yourself, make your friend appear at the last minute and save the day…no? Yes? Well?"

The boy tilted his head. "I don't know that I've ever prayed, you know. Don't know if there's a God even, and given some of the stuff I've seen, don't know if I ever will." He shrugged, and for the first time, the boy's eyes slipped away from the madman in front of him and focused on the madman on the ground. The Doctor again found himself looking into the horribly, horribly familiar hazel eyes.

"But if there's one thing I believe in," he continued, smirking at the Doctor, who felt time stop for just an instant…

"…I believe in her."

_Impossible. Can't be, literally no possible way…_

_'I thought you liked impossible'_, a memory echoed in response.

_Rose…_

And after that one, still, crucial moment, everything happened in an instant.

The ground beneath them began to shake violently and those who weren't already on the floor began to topple over…

Out the window, the billions of Toclafane were blinking out of existence, the red sky fading back into grey…

The Master's head snapped around to the window at he took a step in that direction, wailing, "My children!"

The boy ducked around the Master and away from Lucy, aiming the barrel at his head again and squeezing down…

Lucy squeezed the trigger of her gun in shock at the sudden movement of the floor, and the bullet ripped through the boy's right side just as he fired his gun…

Jack threw off his two guards and made to shield the boy with his body, pulling him against his chest and turning his back to the room full of soldiers…

The guards that hadn't been knocked to their feet took aim and fired, bullets meant for the boy all met with a solid wall of ex-Time Agent…

The Master's back arched straight, his mind scrambled and nerves gone haywire, as he fell face-first onto the podium…

Martha ducked underneath the line of fire, pulling off her Perception Filter and finally getting it around the Master's neck, knowing the aura of fear was the only thing keeping the guards on their side from stopping those loyal to the Master…

The President's guards, as well as most of those no longer under Saxon's spell, found their courage again and detained the rogue guards, gunning down those who refused to surrender…

And the Doctor felt his body begin to warm as the effects of the Master's device were undone, as Time itself was reversed.

All of this happened in only three seconds. And then the shaking _really_ began.

"Time's reversing!" He half-crowed, his voice coming back to him as he got rapidly younger. "Everyone just get down and hold on!" The civilians still in the room screamed in sheer terror, and even the guards were hard pressed to keep themselves calm while trying to maintain their guard on the rebel soldiers. The shaking lasted for another ten seconds or so before it gradually came to a halt, and people burst into a flurry of motion.

Trusting that the important things would be handled by others at the moment, guards taken care of, Master restrained—_he's not dead, not dead-_the Doctor looked to his right and noticed that Jack had fallen beside him, body still shielding the boy, his back riddled with oozing red holes. The Doctor sighed.

_Oh, Jack, I'm so, so sorry…_

Dead for the moment, the Doctor pushed the man off of the boy, wanting to make sure the boy hadn't been crushed during his fall. Those hazel eyes cracked open and met his.

"Heya, Doc. Nice to finally meet you. 'Cause I've certainly heard a lot about you, you know." The Doctor grinned slowly in response, long-suppressed hope bubbling to the surface of his mind.

"If those stories of me came from who I think they came from, then it is certainly nice to meet you, too." The boy smiled weakly, then coughed into his hand. And then all smiles and happy thoughts dropped away from him as that hand came away covered in red.

"You've been shot," he rasped in horror. Oh, no, no, no, no, no…

The boy's hand drifted down to his right side, where a patch of red was blooming just under his ribs. He fingered the wet fabric of his jumper and the hole in his coat.

"Damn," he sighed, "I loved this jacket."

"Your _jacket_?" His voice pitched high, incredulous that _that_ was his biggest worry at the moment. The boy only looked at him oddly, tugging on the Doctor's own overcoat.

"Yes. I love it. And I know you love yours, this coat," he said with another tug. "Janis Joplin gave you that coat." The Doctor blinked.

"Well, yes, but—how do you—oh, never _mind_ that! You're bleeding out on the floor!"

"I noticed," he chuckled, but was interrupted by another cough. The sound seemed to snap his priorities back in place, and he scooped the boy up carefully in his arms, standing and turning quickly to take in the chaos around him. He needed to get the boy medical attention, fast, but he was far from the only one who needed it, and outside forces were just now responding to the assassination of the American President.

He immediately turned to his favorite medical student, but saw she was preoccupied. After having helped ensure the Master was restrained before he woke up—_and he will wake up_—Martha had run to her family to embrace them and check over their injuries from the fight and previous imprisonment.

He heard Jack gasp suddenly below him and made his decision. If time had been reversed, that meant that someone had destroyed the paradox machine. And if that someone was who he thought it was, there was no way he was going anywhere but there.

o0o0o0o0o

"Jack, good, you're up," the Doctor spoke to the immortal man as if he'd just woken up from a nap and not from death. Standing and glaring at him, Jack was about to call him out on it, when his eyes fell on the boy in his arms and his face fell.

"Shit, I thought I…" The boy reached over and patted him on the chest.

"S'okay. You got the soldiers, it was Lucy. Good shot, she is. Can't say much for her taste in men." His eyes were slightly glazed as he looked between the faces of the two men above him. The Doctor huffed and Jack let out a chuckle, following him when the man marched out of the room, headed back towards the corridors.

"C'mon, then, let's get back to her," the boy muttered as they strode with purpose through the halls. He sighed. "Oh, she's going to kill me. If I don't die, I mean. Well, if I do she'll bring me back. Then kill me. Won't let me stay that way, of course, but…." Jack just looked between the boy and the Doctor in utter confusion, the latter of the two smiling softly in a way he had only seen around one person…

But he'd said…

"Uhm, who is it, exactly, that we're going back to?" Jack hedged. The boy just turned back to look at Jack as if he'd dribbled on himself.

"Mary, Queen of Scots. Who do you _think_ I'd be travelling with, have you seen me hanging around many other women—wait, don't answer that. But really, the only person I'd—oh. _Oh_, shit." He cringed and covered his face, muttering. Jack strained to catch most of it.

"—doesn't even _remember _me yet, you idiot—" Jack blinked.

"Remember you? Have we….met?" The boy shrugged uncomfortably.

"Kinda sorta. Yes and no. We'll explain it later. Wibbley-wobbley—"

"Timey-wimey, yeah, yeah, I get it," Jack finished. Ahead of him, the Doctor took an abrupt turn and kicked in the metal door, revealing the TARDIS behind it. Jack followed him, prepared to unlock the door and let them in, when the Doctor turned and deposited the boy into his arms.

"Oof," he huffed as he settled the boy so he didn't upset his side too much.

"Sorry," the Doctor wiggled his freed hands, "Pretty sure I'm going to need these in a moment," he declared cryptically and quickly unlocked and threw open the doors to the TARDIS.

"Oh dear god…" the boy muttered, covering his face, not in pain, but in…embarrassment?

All musings were brushed aside, however, as soon as he stepped into the console room and saw _her_.

There, somehow, someway, leaning against the central panel and grating, unconscious but very much alive, was one Rose Marion Tyler.

o0o0o0o0o

_Chapter 2 is already mostly done, but I want to get a little feedback on this one first. Tell me what you think so far? _


	2. Impossible Girl

_Hello again-I was very happy to see that my story got such a positive response! Many of you had questions, which is just what I intended-all will be answered in time, I plan on revealing much of what went on in the parallel world in the upcoming chapters...just not block by block, just little pieces._

o0o0o0o0o

He was sure that the moment he stepped into his TARDIS and saw his impossible girl, his Rose, right there in front of him, injured but alive, his hearts stopped for a million and one different reasons.

And judging by the way his respiratory bypass seemed to have kicked in, he was fairly certain his lungs had stopped, too.

Not wanting to stop for something as silly as multiple organ failure, he practically leaped the rest of the distance between them and dropped to his knees in front of her, reaching out for her face with trembling hands, afraid that if he touched her, breathed, even blinked, she'd vanish.

He let his eyes drink in every little detail in an instant, from top to bottom. Her hair was no longer bleach blonde, but a darker, richer, golden color, falling in gentle waves just past her shoulder-blades. He also saw no undyed roots—he wondered about that for a moment—but continued his visual journey downward. There was a trail of blood that leaked from a nasty gash on her forehead—she must have knocked her head on the console, he realized, and he _would _be addressing that promptly—but otherwise her forehead was smoothed out in unconscious slumber. Her dark, expressive eyebrows were relaxed over eyes that seemed to be wearing much less makeup than he remembered, but he was much more eager to focus on those once they were open. The smooth lines of her squared cheekbones and cute little nose drew his eye to her full, pink lips—a constant source of distraction for him, especially in this body—right above her little rounded chin. He followed the curve of her neck down, down, down to the slight rise of her clavicle, half-covered by a deep brown shirt, which itself was mostly covered by a deep-blue, leather jacket. The jacket wasn't bulky, but it covered her well enough that it took him a moment to realize she seemed a good deal slimmer than he remembered, her waist narrower, her stomach flatter and tighter. Her legs, also, seemed more toned beneath her dark blue jeans, which disappeared into a pair of flattering, but practical-looking black boots.

He figured he could have spent an eternity taking her in just with his eyes, but his hands, on auto-pilot, reached her face, cupping each cheek gently in each palm, and his fingers curled into her hair on either side.

_Oh, she's so warm…_

As he brushed his thumbs over the hollows beneath her eyes, they began to flutter open. Reluctantly, he moved one hand from her face to move her away from the console, settling her so she was leaning against the crook of his left arm instead, using his hand to support her head.

Her eyes took a moment to come into focus, but when they did, they focused on his immediately and a warm, wide look of utter joy spread across her face.

"Hello," she said simply, brushing her fingers over the back of the hand on her face.

"Hello," he breathed, for once his mouth could find no other words.

"Miss me?" She asked lightly.

He felt his face grow tight with emotion, tried to let his eyes tell her what his mouth could not. "Constantly."

She nodded, her eyes soft as she moved to stroke his shadowed face in return. His eyes closed as he leaned into the touch.

"Every day," she agreed.

He could feel a reservoir of words bubbling up from his chest, questions, declarations, things left unsaid, but before he could release them a half-broken whisper broke their bubble.

"Rosie…?" The woman in question jumped a little in surprise, then stood so quickly the Doctor was forced to scoot back a little, though he quickly stood up to join her and grasped her hand.

"Jack?" She was staring at Jack in surprise, and _Oh, this was going to be hard to explain_, he thought, but before he could do anything else Rose let out a half-choked cry.

"_Tony_! What the hell happened?!" She snapped her head back to Jack and he couldn't help but flinch. "Why are you just _standing_ there! He's _bleeding out on the floor_!" Before Jack's slack-jaw could form a response, Rose had already yanked her hand from the Doctor's grasp—he hoped she wasn't making a habit of this-and grabbed the boy—Tony, apparently, who gave a weak chuckle as he was whisked away—and was rushing him down the corridors of the TARDIS before the Doctor remembered to move.

Both men rushed after her, following her stormy path to a hall just off the console room.

"Rose, wait, the Medbay is—" the door opened for her and she walked into…well, the Medbay.

"Is here, she moved it for me," she said absently as she laid Tony down on the examination table and began working his jacket off of him. The Doctor blinked. What did she mean, _for_ her? The TARDIS would sometimes move rooms for him if he asked, or she would move them on her own when she was bored (or wanted to mess with a passenger she was annoyed with) but the way Rose had phrased it made it sound like she had actually spoken to the TARDIS, made a request, and had it answered.

When had she done that?

When had she become _able_ to do that?

"Uh….Rose….you..?" Without looking away from her frantic raiding of the medical supplies, she addressed both men tersely.

"I'm sure we all have lots of hugs and questions for each other—like why the _hell_ you two were just standing there with Tony _dying in Jack's arms_—but they _will_ wait until later. Now one of you lumps stop being so bloody useless and get me a wet cloth so I can clean the _bullet wound_ in my brother's side."

The Doctor, indeed feeling rather like a lump at the moment, stared at the boy in shock.

_Brother…? But he's got to be at least 13….How long…?_

_Oh, Rose…_

Luckily Jack had snapped out of his stupor and was wetting a cloth from the UV sterilized tap on the counter. Rose had a pair of wicked looking medical shears in hand and was pulling at her brother's jumper.

"I need to cut this away so I can get to the wound—I don't want you lifting your arms, not with your chest like that." Tony sighed, looking at her pleadingly.

"But I _love_ this jumper—I'm sure the blood will come out—and besides, I'm actually feel…ing…" his protests trickled off under the full force of a Glare from Rose Tyler while holding Pointy Things. "Quiet. Very quiet, and obedient, is how I am," he finished meekly.

Rose smirked as she immediately cut the shirt clean in two. "There's a love."

Deciding that being useful would be enough of a distraction from his burning questions at the moment—and also because he was feeling really, supremely guilty about not rushing Rose's brother here immediately—the Doctor grabbed a magnetized probe to help retrieve the bullet (which was hopefully in one piece, and not in fragments.)

Jack had returned with the cloth and was cleaning the wound gently but efficiently with the ease of the two-hundred year old soldier he was, while Rose administered fluids to make up for the blood loss. When Jack turned around to rinse the cloth clean, Rose looked up just in time to see his back and the landscape of bloodstained holes in his jacket. She sucked in a sharp breath.

"Oh, Jack…." She whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry…"

"What?" He turned around, confused for a moment when he saw the deep sadness on her face, then realized what she had just been looking at. He stiffened and shot a furtive glance over at the Doctor, who was looking at Rose nervously. If she was apologizing, did that mean she….

Jack tried to blow it off, grinning at her and tugging at the offending item. "Oh, this? This is just something I er….borrowed earlier, it already had all the holes—I think it was a costume prop, maybe, or—"

"I'm not an idiot, Jack," she snapped. He winced, his grin faltering, looking down at the floor as he rubbed his neck.

"No, no, you're not. But it's not like it's your fault, Rosie, really…"

"Yes, it is," she sighed, defeated. The Doctor's stomach dropped.

_Oh. She knew._

Jack looked at him pleadingly, but the Doctor found he couldn't meet either of their gazes. So many things he did hurt the ones he cared about. He watched Rose's deft fingers as she inspected the wound on her brother's side, a wound he had received because he had failed to stop the Master in time….

For a bullet wound, though, it seemed awfully shallow…

Rose seemed to realize this at around the same time he did, and looked up at her brother in confusion. "Has this…healed already?" She asked, sounding worried. Tony smirked.

"I was trying to tell you earlier—I got shot right when you destroyed whatever that machine was, and according to him," he pointed at the Doctor, "Time was reversing, so I guess the damage was mostly reversed as well. Not before I lost some blood," he added carefully, wary of upsetting her again, "But early enough that it didn't do any lasting damage. Well, for someone like me, anyway." Rose shot a nervous glance over at the Doctor at that last statement, but he was so caught up on the first part of that statement that he filed away the question of what _"someone like me_" meant, exactly, for later.

He supposed he had realized it earlier, but it really hadn't sunk in until Tony had stated it so casually. Rose had dismantled and/or destroyed an extremely dangerous and sophisticated piece of—horrible, wretched—machinery that was choking the TARDIS, without harming the ship in the process. By herself.

….how….?

"Rose…?" he began hesitantly.

"Questions later," she repeated, though not unkindly. Now that her brother seemed to be out of immediate danger, she seemed to calm down somewhat. Still reluctant to let this _very important_ conversation go for now, he could admit that they had other things to take care of first. Tony was just the first of them.

"Could you scan him and make sure all of the bullet is gone? I can't see anything, but I want to make sure," she asked as she rummaged again through the cabinets. Realizing a moment later that she was most likely addressing him, as he was the one with a sonic screwdriver, he quickly whipped out his favorite tool and adjusted it, making several passes over the wound and getting the readings. He nodded and grinned at the boy.

"Just flesh and bone, no metal. And," he adjusted the setting, passed it over the wound a few more times, shutting it off and twirling it in his fingers, "no bacteria! Well, none of the harmful stuff, anyway. Did you know that at any one time there are literally _millions_ of microorganisms living in and around the average—"

"Doctor," Rose interrupted, an amused quirk on her lips. The man in question felt his hearts give a little extra beat. It was such a small thing, really….but it was the first time in years he'd heard her say his name. He wondered at that, and the errant thought floated by, of what it would feel like to hear his _true_ name, in her voice….

The skip in his heartsbeat became a little more pronounced.

_Now is _definitely_ not the time to be entertaining thoughts like _that….

In the meantime she had grabbed a tube of special medicinal gel from the 32nd Century and squeezed it into the shallow hole in her brother's side, filling the wound. It would dissolve gradually, providing all of the material needed to boost Tony's cells to regrow and fill the hole with healthy muscle, as well as preventing an abscess. Rose turned to him, mouth open to ask him for the Dermal Regenerator, but he'd already grabbed it as soon as he'd realized what she was doing. She closed her mouth and grinned at him instead, a gesture he returned silently as he ran the Regenerator slowly over the wound, watching her out of the corner of his eye as her brother's skin closed until it looked like nothing more than a light bruise.

It pleased him more than he could define that they could just fall back into wordless cooperation after everything that had happened. They really were quite the team…

"Mutt and Jeff, Hope and Glory, Shiver and Shake…" he murmured under his breath without realizing it. A shaky breath from Rose let him know that he'd been heard. Mouth trembling, she smiled at him.

"Which one's Shiver?" She asked in a watery voice. His eyes stung.

"Oh, I'm Shake…" He barely registered the sound of the Regenerator clattering to the floor as everything else unimportant fell away from him so his arms could open and catch the girl who'd just thrown herself into his arms. She gripped his narrow shoulders with a strength he'd always imagined she had, but had not felt so keenly until now. In return, he wound his arms around her so tightly that they nearly doubled-back, lifting her feet off the ground and spinning her in circles, as he had when he thought he'd lost her on Krop Tor. Her laughing sobs reverberated against his chest as he buried his face into the junction of her neck, inhaling deeply to reburn the scent of her into his senses, exhaling shakily as he released it, reluctant to let any air filled with her away from him.

Her swinging feet caught a tray and knocked a few items to the ground and they were startled out of their swinging hug. The Doctor put Rose down and looked over sheepishly at the mess on the floor, but kept his arms around her. He became aware of the other two occupants of the room as a chuckle started from behind them.

"Down, boy," Jack grinned. Tony had moved to sit on the edge of the table, looking at the two of them with an unreadable expression on his face, though he did appear to be smiling somewhat. That smile turned to chagrin however, when his sister rounded on him.

"Oi, where do you think you're going? Don't think I didn't see the blood on your teeth—you've punctured your lung." The boy sagged, eyes wide and pleading.

"Really, Rose, I swear I'm fine—I was only coughing up the blood that managed to pool there before time reversed. Lungs are all pink, healthy and whole. Well, more like hole-less, but….okay yeah, that was bad," he trailed off when he saw the withering look Rose gave him. She didn't hold onto it for long before her expression crumpled into guilt.

"I'm sorry. You know I don't mean to coddle you….I just…" she trailed off. He had a tender expression on his face.

"I know." Shaking free of the Doctor's arms, she pulled her brother into a light hug, resting her chin on his shoulder.

"I know you can take care of yourself, but it's still my fault you got shot," she said quietly. Tony shook his head and pushed her back by the shoulders, just a little, so he could look her in the eye.

"Stop that. You as much as told me you'd have gone in there yourself, if you weren't busy doing something probably twice as risky." The Doctor felt a sudden jolt of alarm at that—never mind that she'd already done it and appeared—mostly—unscathed. He really, _really_ needed to know how she disassembled that paradox machine, especially considering it didn't appear that either of them even knew what it was. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer. Tony continued to reassure his sister, unaware of the turmoil in the Doctor's mind, which only increased at his next words.

"You sent me in there because you needed to save him and you couldn't do it yourself—" The Doctor choked.

Wait, _what_? Rose had sent her own brother, a _child_, into the Lion's Den? To save him? Rose wouldn't do that, not the Rose he knew…

How much of her life had he missed?

"—and you had no way of knowing that time would reverse whenever you did your thing, so it was only logical that I go buy you some time. It's a good thing time did reverse, though, because, well, I know you're into older men, but himself was a little grey there for awhile," he said with a teasing grin, pointing at the Doctor, who could only continue his hopeless spluttering. Rose looked over at him in confusion, while Jack, oddly silent until now, barked a laugh.

"Also," he continued lightly, "that crazy Time Lord's wife is a bit trigger happy." The confusion on Rose's face deepened and mixed with shock, hurt, betrayal, and any number of things the Doctor never ever wanted to see on her face. Before he could explain, a snort and a tap on the shoulder from Tony caught her attention.

"Not _him_," he rolled his eyes, "the other one," he clarified. Still staring at him, the other emotions melted away, but the shock and confusion remained on Rose's face.

"Other…..Time Lord? I thought you'd said…?" A small flicker of hope—for _him_, he realized—began to surface in her eyes, and suddenly his chest felt too small for his lungs. He dropped his gaze.

"Thought so, too," he said simply. But, like so many other things, he'd been wrong. Horribly, dreadfully, wrong. He saw Rose's boot-clad feet slowly move away from the table and back over to him.

"Not a friend, then?" Her voice was soft, and it was phrased as a question. But he knew that she already knew the answer.

"Used to be. A long, long time ago."

"In a galaxy far away?" Despite the utter seriousness of the conversation, he couldn't help the slight twitch of his lips.

"Yes, actually." Her outstretched hands appeared in his line of vision and he clasped both of them together without a thought. He tugged her forward with them, tucked their entwined hands under his chin and finally met her gaze. There were unshed tears shining in her eyes. For him. Crying for a man who may very well have killed her brother—all of them—because of what the Master meant to _him_.

He wondered if he'd ever uncover the memories of what he'd done, exactly, in his lives to deserve her.

"Rose Tyler," he said with as much warmth and affection as he could dredge up from his ancient soul, though the warm hands resting beneath his chin were certainly heating more than his skin, "you are, one of a kind. Cracking Star Wars jokes, making me smile, when I'd rather—" he stuttered, "when I feel like…" Her hands had worked their way out from under his, around his neck, over his shoulders, and she pulled him gently back against her. His hands found their way to her back again, spreading wide and pushing her against him, holding her to him, clinging unashamedly. He buried his face in her shoulder and took a deep, cleansing breath, the scent of her making his cold lungs burn with warmth again, and the breath and nameless other things shuddered out of him then, the tightness compressing his chest loosening—not completely, but enough that he could breathe again.

"If you feel like it, then go ahead," she whispered in his ear. "I'm here," she reminded him, working her fingers over the tight knot at the base of his neck, sending peace through her touch. "I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere, not ever again," she repeated, her own voice sure, but shaking.

And it was all too much. Hiding his face in her shoulder, he felt something in him break, felt something come loose and fall and shatter.

And for the first time since he'd left his unfinished words, and his hearts, on a beach an entire universe away, he cried.

o0o0o0o0o

Watching the two of them cling to each other, oblivious to the rest of the world, Jack knew that this reunion had gotten far too personal about five minutes ago, and that he really should have left the minute he was sure that Tony was going to be all right, but damn it, Rose was important to him, too, and it had been far, far longer since he'd last seen her—properly, anyway-than it had been for the Doctor.

But, as he literally could wait forever if needed, he decided to be patient and let them have their moment. Besides, there were some other rather pressing matters that needed to be tended to—his team, for one, and of course the psychopathic Time Lord who'd nearly destroyed them all. He was just about to quietly slip away when he felt a tug on his sleeve.

"Should we leave them, or…?" Tony had slipped down from the table and shrugged his bomber jacket back on, though the tattered jumper remained off to the side.

"Yeah, we'd better slip out before they start getting properly…_reacquainted_," he grinned down at the boy, letting his eyes slide once more over the image of his two best friends embracing before returning. "I don't think you want to be here for that." That was to say nothing of Jack's own preferences, of course. Watching the two of them—or even joining in—had been on his mind from the day he met them. But this, the emotions practically radiating off of the pair made him feel uncomfortable; the intensity between the two was too…_pure, _that for once his natural voyeurism seemed shameful, even to him.

Tony seemed to be processing the thought with even greater disgust.

"Yeah, thanks, Jack—I really needed that mental image," he grimaced. He took one last look around the room before quickly proceeding Jack out the door. He was silent for a moment, Jack trailing him through the twisting hallways of the TARDIS, when he shuddered suddenly and turned to glare at him.

"You know, I'll never be able to go in that room without thinking about," he waved his hand absently, "_that_, ever again." They entered the console room and headed towards the door. "And I will never touch that table for the rest of my life," he muttered.

Jack cocked his head to the side in amusement. "I never said anything about the table. Or its' potential uses." They exited the TARDIS and stepped back into the dim lighting of the _Valiant_.

"Yeah, well, I have an overactive imagination," he grumbled. Jack couldn't help but laugh.

"Well, at least it'll be a strong motivator for not getting shot again." He paused, considering carefully. "Besides the fact that it hurts like hell, I don't think Rose would take it well if you got yourself killed." They were walking side by side now, so Jack was able to see when the boy's face slid into a blank mask. It was extremely disconcerting for a number of reasons, not the least of which was his age. Someone that young shouldn't have the skill necessary, or the experiences that would require one to hide their emotions so efficiently. And Jack was exceptionally good at reading people—had been even back when he was mortal, and now with centuries of practice it was even sharper.

"No, no she really…wouldn't," he said quietly. He had easily picked up on the hesitation in his words, but Tony seemed disinclined to say more on the matter. Jack decided to let it go for now, and focused on some other interesting things he'd picked up on.

"You and Rose both seemed to know about my…condition," he began, his personal curiosity about the factor that more or less defined his life burning.

"Yes, but…" he hedged, "I don't think she knew until after she and the Doctor were separated, so please don't be mad at her for-" Jack held up a hand, eyebrows raised.

"Woah, hold up, I don't blame her," he assured Tony, who looked a little relieved. Jack's grin turned a bit rueful. "In fact, I should have known that she had no idea, if she thought I was still alive she would have at least come to say goodbye…."

He could admit that he was still more than a little bitter. Being abandoned, the centuries alone of not knowing if they had made it out as well, wavering between being the kind of man that they—_she_—could be proud of and falling even lower than the conman he'd once been, living through an ancient time 3000 years in his past, inexplicably immortal…

But even with all of that weighing on him, he simply couldn't find it in himself to be angry at Rose, even if his blessing and his curse was at the hands of her.

Because for all of his amorous escapades, all of the people who had filled his bed and his life, no one had ever _loved_ him like that before—loved him enough to reverse death itself, to decide that the universe simply couldn't do without him.

A small chuckle broke his internal musings. "You're right, you know," Tony admitted. Jack looked over at him, waiting for him to elaborate. "Apparently, after everything settled down from his regeneration and the Sycorax invasion and they got around to talking about the Gamestation, the Doctor told her that you were busy rebuilding the Earth after the Dalek invasion, and that they'd stop back and visit when the time was right. Rose took it to mean that you'd actually died, though, and the Doctor didn't want to upset her." He shook his head. "You know, like that farm that all dogs mysteriously retire to one day that you can never visit for some reason." Jack raised an eyebrow at the comparison to a family pet, a bit offended, but Tony carried on.

"I think she would have….eventually confronted him about it," he admitted quietly, "but it was only a year later that she…fell," he finished solemnly, staring ahead as they reached the end of the corridor, close to the main room now. They were both quiet for a moment, listening to the echoes their footsteps made on the metal hallways of the airship.

"She did mourn you, you know," Tony told him. Jack raised an eyebrow. Tony glanced over at him for a moment, then looked forward again. "Back in the other universe, I mean. She travelled a lot, naturally—her first year there, she made a trip to Washington, D.C. Visited Arlington Cemetery, falsified some papers. Since she couldn't put you down as a casualty of a war that hadn't happened yet, she listed you as MIA during WWII. Got a cross put up for you. We visited once a year, until…well." His gaze became distant, and Jack felt a lump in his throat.

He honestly didn't know what to say. He hoped Rose wouldn't be too embarrassed to tell him about this herself, so he could tell her how much that meant to him, but even if she never brought it up, just knowing that she cared was….more than enough.

Another chuckle interrupted his thoughts, though this one seemed devoid of real humor. "I kind of want to be there when she lays into him for abandoning you," Tony admitted with a smirk. Jack couldn't help but grin, though he knew she would, of course, forgive the Doctor sooner rather than later. A small, nasty corner of his soul wished she wouldn't, but her capacity to forgive was one of the things that made her so beautiful. Hell, he'd almost brought about the end of the world the very first day he met her, and she managed to forgive him.

"Oh, believe me, I can't wait for that either. The Oncoming Storm, quailing before the wrath of Rose Tyler." Tony grinned.

"Trust me, that is a glare with a force that cannot be denied. She's earned some of her own nicknames, too, you know—but I'll let her tell you about them, I think." Jack nodded. He was looking forward to just sitting down with them all and spending a day or two just talking, after all the chaos of the past few days.

Luckily, the chaos seemed to be almost over, he decided upon a quick glance of the main room they were just now reentering. Jack had purposefully slowed his pace as they walked back from the TARDIS, mindful of Tony still being injured, but also wanting to drag out his conversation with Rose's odd, unexpected brother. He assumed he came from the parallel world, since he knew very well that Pete and Jackie Tyler hadn't had a son in this Universe, but that just raised another slew of questions. Canary Wharf had only been a year ago, linear time, but Tony spoke as if Rose had spent many years there. He assumed time moved differently, but how much? He knew Jackie had gone there as well, but did Tony already exist there? Had Rose really been gone 13 or so years? She certainly didn't appear to have aged—looked even more beautiful than before, which, while nice, was worrying in other ways…

He spotted Martha across the room, still standing with her family, who thankfully appeared to be whole, though still shaken by what had happened. He decided he'd let her tend to them for now, and wait for her to come to him, if she wanted to talk. He grimaced, thinking of her possible reaction to Rose's return, but hoped she'd be a big enough person to not let her…crush…on the Doctor color her attitude towards the other woman.

Tony had already started walking towards the podium, where the Master was restrained by no less than three guards, though he still seemed to be out of it. Lucy Saxon was also being held, though she seemed to have a dazed expression on her face, as if she wasn't seeing what was in front of her. Personally, he thought she wasn't all there upstairs to begin with, and it seemed she had finally checked out.

Just as he thought this, though, she seemed to catch sight of Tony, who gave her a broad grin and finger-waggling wave. Her dazed look fell into doe-eyed confusion, and her mouth worked silently for a moment before she pointedly looked the other way and returned to staring at nothing.

Tony shrugged, and, carefully bending over so as to not upset his still tender side, scooped up his bronze gun from the ground where he'd dropped it after being shot.

Jack walked up beside him and raised an eyebrow at the weapon, then looked at Tony. "You know, I've never actually heard of Psychokinetic Wavelength Disintegrator." Tony grinned broadly.

"Well, I was already lying my arse off, I figured making this thing seem a little more deadly couldn't hurt." He carefully engaged the safety on the weapon and slid it into one of the loops on his jeans.

He spread his hands, explaining. "It's not that far off though—it's just a Disruptor, rather than a Disintegrator—it's not permanent, unless the target already has severe neural damage, or it's not set for the correct subset of species…but anyway, it more or less just scrambles the non-essential pathways of the brain, like a temporary coma. I turned the setting kind of high, since, you know—Time Lord, figured he'd have a pretty advanced mind, batshit crazy or not…" He trailed off, sticking his hands in his pockets, suddenly shy. "I mean," he continued, staring at his feet, "I basically walked in here with nothing but a glorified stun gun and good intentions. Not sure what I would have done if time hadn't reversed…" He looked up again. "But it all worked out in the end, right?"

With a bit of a start, Jack noticed that Tony was looking up at him with a small, nervous smile, almost as if he was hoping for approval from him. He'd seen it on the faces of new recruits dozens of times, but up until now the boy had been fairly casual with him, and he'd even hinted that they knew each other, or at least, they would in Jack's future.

With a sudden pang of nervousness, Jack Harkness realized that Tony might just look up to him a little.

_How the hell did I get picked as _anyone's_ role model?_

Feeling suddenly a little more responsible, he clapped a hand to the boy's leather-clad shoulder and grinned reassuringly at him. "Kiddo, you just saved the world. I'd say that worked out a little more than alright."

Instead of the expected happy smile in return, Tony just grimaced, and Jack's face fell a little.

_Well, two seconds into being an idol, and I've already screwed up. Par for the course, I guess._

"I'm never going to escape that nickname, am I?" Tony asked with a long-suffering sigh. Jack blinked.

_Oh, that's why he…._ He felt his grin return.

"Well, now that you've told me it's your nickname….nope!" Tony scowled at him, though he could see the amusement and…affection just underneath the surface.

"Well, then I guess that means I can go back to calling you Ahab," the redhead declared with a shrug and a smirk. Jack only felt befuddlement.

"I uh….have a feeling there's a story behind that, but I'm guessing you can't tell me…" Jack trailed off. Tony cocked his head, amused smirk still playing at his lips.

"No, you'll remember soon enough, I suppose…" Jack's eyebrow rose sharply at that.

"Remember?" He recalled that Tony had said remember before, as well. He'd assumed the boy had just been dazed from his injury, and meant to say that Jack didn't remember Tony because they hadn't met yet in Jack's timeline, but this made it sound as if Jack had already met Tony…then forgotten.

Or had been made to forget.

Tony seemed to read the growing tenseness in his jaw and winced, holding his hands up placating. "Okay, I…probably shouldn't have said that, but…well, like I said, you'll find out soon enough anyway so just—just, hear me out, okay?" Jack, despite his growing sense of unease, nodded sharply. Tony took a deep breath and looked him right in the eyes as he let everything out in a rush.

"You know those two years the Time Agency took from you?" Jack felt something cold drop into his stomach. "Well, it wasn't actually the Time Agency…it was us."

o0o0o0o0o

_This got away from me a little...I intended to have more action, but I felt that a little more introspection was needed, considering all the emotions riding high...let me know what you think!_


	3. That Which We Call

_*Cringes* I am so sorry this update took so long. I was in the middle of a move, and then I got stuck on this chapter (re-wrote it a few different times), and I was in the process of writing an outline for the next few chapters…._

_Anyway, enough excuses. Allon-sy!_

o0o0o0o0o

The Doctor couldn't help but wonder if the Master's weapon had done something to his time sense, because if he were asked, he honestly wouldn't be able to say exactly how long he and Rose stood in each other's arms, crying into each other's shoulders—from grief, loss, happiness—he wasn't quite sure what fraction of their tears could be attributed to each, and he couldn't care less. It just felt too damn good—to finally let go in front of the one person he actually felt able to, to have her in his arms.

It hit him, again, as it had repeatedly since he'd walked back into the TARDIS. She was here—she was really, really here.

He squeezed her tighter.

"I missed you, so much," she confessed after a long, shuddering sigh. Her hands, which had been clinching the fabric of his suit, relaxed and began to run soothingly up and down his back. The Doctor sighed, his breath against her neck causing her to shiver slightly. His cheek brushed against hers as he drew his head back, only to rest his forehead against hers, eyes still closed.

"It was so hard, sometimes," she continued, "I didn't have _nothing_ but sometimes it _felt_ like it and thinking about this—right now, finally seeing you again—well….sometimes it was the only thing….that kept me going, especially after—especially during the bad days…." He swallowed convulsively. Though his tears had now dried up, he still felt an aching sadness at the misery lacing her voice. She should never have to feel like that. He would make it so she would never have to feel like that ever again, he decided, trying to ignore the portion of his mind that reminded him it was entirely his fault she'd had reason to feel such pain in the first place.

Because he knew all too well the kind of torment that separation cost someone.

"Oh, Rose, you….you have no idea what it was like, for me, all those years…" Suddenly, she stiffened, pulled back from him. The abrupt absence of her nearly made him fall forward, and he opened his eyes to see her staring at him with a drawn expression, nearly a glare.

"No idea what it was like…?" she said in a dangerously low tone. "I think I know _exactly_ what it was like, Doctor." He winced, remembering her brother, and what his age implied. That had been a bit thoughtless. Rude and not ginger, indeed. Just as he was about to apologize, her gaze turned a little unsure, and she cocked her head to the side, studying him.

"Except…how long has it been for _you_, Doctor? In your personal timeline?" He blinked, a bit thrown by her question, but having been acutely aware of the answer since the count began, it spilled from his lips readily.

"Thirteen years, two months, five days, one hour, and…well, the minutes are off, since I seem to have stopped counting the minute I saw you here—and that's a first for me, you know, losing track of time—it's a rather unpleasant feeling, but I certainly can't complain since you're here, and I don't have a reason to keep track of it anymore—but still! That's you Rose Tyler, always distracting me, you cheeky girl, somehow making me experience human things first hand—I guess I can see why you lot are always so keen on keeping watches around, if that's what it's like to not feel the minutes as they pass, but then…" He trailed off, noticing for the first time that Rose had not made a sound as he babbled nervously, but was instead staring fixedly at a point just below his chin, her own lips quivering. And her eyes, which had been red before, were wet again, fresh tears about to spill. Bugger. So much for never making her feel sadness again.

"Rose, _Rose_? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—please don't cry," he pleaded, shifting from one foot to another, wringing his anxious hands together, wanting to reach out for her again but now worried that it might only make things worse. He stilled a bit as she let out a wet laugh, reaching up a hand to cover her mouth, then wipe at her eyes.

"S'not—sorry, it's just….you're so _you_," she told him, her voice a mix of awe, exasperation, and a heavy dose of something he feared to put a name to at the moment.

"Yes, I'm me," he replied, confused and a little worried. "And….that makes you…sad?" Her laugh was lighter this time, and preceded a real grin which did funny things to his insides—as it always had. That was something he should really look into, since it couldn't be good for his organs, but decided that could wait until later—much later, in fact, as the sensations only seemed to happen when she laughed or smiled or held his hand….he needed to collect more data. A larger sample size would provide more accurate results, after all, and he was nothing if not an empiricist. So, more hugging, then. And touching, hand-holding, making her laugh…. For science.

He returned from his musings just as her laugh trailed off, watching as she shook her head at him—fondly, he thought. Her small smile was definitely fond as she stepped back to him, straightening his tie and jacket as she spoke.

"Never, I just meant…even after all this time, you're still so familiar—I get mad at you, you get nervous and babble at light speed until you start saying things so far away from the original topic that I can't help but laugh and—" she shrugged, placing her hands flat against his now-tidy suit as she looked up at him, eyes soft. "It's like hearing your favorite song again, and suddenly remembering the words and the rhythm and the beat and knowing what part of the chorus comes next, even though you haven't sung the words in years—and even if little bits and pieces of it catch you off guard, you relearn them—you want to _dance_ to it again, and it…" She looked away for a moment, and when her gaze returned her grin was a bit embarrassed. "Sorry, I'm not making much sense, am I?" He couldn't help the grin spreading across his face.

"When do you ever?" he teased, though he hoped that little twinkle in her eye meant that she'd caught on—that he knew _exactly_ what she meant, even if he'd never be able to describe it as poetically as she had.

_Why, music-you can dance to it, sing along with it... Fall in love with it... _

Oh, yes. He knew exactly what she meant.

"Though I think I caught the gist of it," he continued lightly, despite the turmoil in his mind that came from consciously acknowledging what he had realized long ago, albeit silently. "You want to _dance_ with me again, hmm?"

There, flirting. It was indeed very easy to fall back into the same rhythm, like a song remembered. Anything to keep things light for now, though he knew it was a weak barrier against the impending flood of deep, serious discussions just waiting to burst forth, for a little while, he wanted to just…be, with her, just exist together in this moment.

That word, though, _dance_. It was always risky, using it between them, since he was fairly certain that, whenever either of them brought it up after that night in the basement of Albion Hospital, they never, ever, really meant _just_ dancing.

He knew _he_ certainly didn't. It was his own, _As You Wish,_ in a way, though perhaps a bit…lewder.

Apparently, Rose was thinking along the same lines. She rolled her eyes.

"Again? You know very well we've never…_danced_ before, Doctor," she said with a grin. His eyebrows shot up to his hairline, and his breath gave an odd little stutter. Oh, _well_, that was—certainly the most _direct_ she'd ever been about it, because they'd certainly danced, but they'd never _danced_, which left very little room for interpretation about what she was—was she really asking to-?

"Not in this body, at least," she continued, and his panicked excitement turned into relieved disappointment. A good deal of disappointment, actually, since that implied she was still separating his previous form from his current one, in some way, and of all the things he'd worried about between them, that was one he'd thought she'd gotten past.

Rose, however, once again displayed her uncanny knack for anticipating his mood and held up a hand to silence him before he could even begin to protest.

"And I know—you're the same man. I got to see that first hand." She raised her hands from his chest to his face, lightly cupping his cheeks, fingers brushing along his sideburns, and the Doctor had to clamp his mouth shut hard to keep a _very_ unmanly sound from escaping. She grinned at him, tongue just barely poking through in that way she grinned when she was well and truly happy, and he was now thoroughly distracted, though he managed to at least half-listen to what she was saying, "_But_, we haven't, in fact, danced with you all brown and pinstripes, though not for lack of trying on my part, and…I dunno. This body seems like it was _made_ for dancing, don't you think?"

"Wellllll….." Technically, he supposed he _was _a rather good dancer in this body….but he wasn't about to bring up Reinette. Or Nurse Redfern, for that matter, but Rose didn't exactly know about that, and he dearly hoped she never would…

Luckily, she either didn't think about the French woman, or decided to not bring it up, for which he was grateful, and continued teasing him. "I mean, new feet—which you'll still find at the end of your legs, just in case you've forgotten…I confess, I'm curious," she remarked in a falsely swotty tone, "to see if you've still got the moves." Ah, and there was the ambiguity again, which meant he had to respond in kind.

"Oh, I've got the _moves,_ Rose Tyler, and I intend to show them to you," he said in a low voice, slipping his hands under her arms to rest just above her waist. She smiled wide, eyes slightly dark.

"Oh, yeah?" She was so….this was getting _somewhere_ really fast, and he…..he wasn't sure if it was the best time….

_Coward…_

"Oh, yeah," he responded anyway, but added a ridiculous eyebrow waggle that caused her to snort, then laugh. She grinned at him again, but it had lost it's heat, and he felt himself relax slightly.

"Well," she giggled, pointing above his eyes, "_these_ seem to have the moves, at least."

"Yep!" He agreed, popping the 'p' happily. "As they should. There are a remarkable number of muscles in your face dedicated solely to eyebrow movement, and you—oh," he frowned. He'd been about to tap on the various places above her eyebrow and name the muscles, when he noticed—or rather, re-noticed—the gash above her right eye. He'd been so focused on….other things, that he'd more or less ignored her injury.

Well, that wouldn't do. He was a Doctor, after all.

"You," he continued, tapping just underneath the wound, while her eyebrows scrunched up in confusion at his sudden mood swing, "need to let me treat this," he declared. She tried to look at where his finger was pointing, and, failing that, raised a hand to prod at the wound. She winced slightly, then pursed her lips.

"Huh. You know, I barely even noticed it until now," she shrugged. "Doesn't really hurt—can't it wait?"

He frowned at her. "No," he said simply. She rolled her eyes, though she didn't protest further.

"All right then, _Doctor_," she drew out his name in her Londoner's drawl, more or less abandoning the 'r', as she hopped up on the table and looked towards him expectantly, swinging her legs. "Let's see you earn your title." He threw her a quick grin, then whipped around to get a clean wet cloth—which he then spritzed with a topical anesthetic.

"This might sting a bit," he told her as he carefully dabbed away the dried blood from her face. She held still for him, closing her right eye when the cloth got too close, but otherwise watched him work silently. After it was clean, he could see that the wound wasn't deep, and the Regenerator should more or less heal it completely. After disinfecting it with his Sonic, he began to slowly run the other device over the gash, watching her skin slowly mend as he spoke to her.

"You know," he mentioned casually, "I don't know that I'd ever told you that my name is a title." He hadn't told her a lot of things, actually…. She merely raised an eyebrow—the left one—at him.

"You didn't need to, I just sort of assumed…I mean, you never just say "I'm Doctor", you say "I'm THE Doctor." You don't hear me saying "I'm The Rose"—the "The" kind of makes it obvious that it's a title, not a given name…."

He pursed his lips. That was a fair point—though most people just kind of went with it after the initial "I'm The Doctor—Doctor Who?—Just, the Doctor" introduction occurred. He had thought she had, as well, and was curious as to when she'd reached her—correct—conclusion. He shut off the Regenerator and set it aside, then shoved his hands in his pockets, cocking his head to the side to look at her.

"You know, for all you know, all Time Lords had names like that," he observed. She blinked up at him, looking a little shocked, since he knew _she_ knew any mention of his planet or his people tended to put him in a mood, and he rarely brought them up. At least, he hadn't so much with her—but recently he'd found himself able to talk about them without feeling like he was drowning, especially since the universe had proven to him that there were yet more things he had to lose….had lost….and the grief of the War had become ever so slightly distant in the face of new heartsbreak.

"…Did they?" She asked hesitantly. He smiled widely at her.

"Nope!" He said perhaps a little too loudly, "You were right—The Doctor is the name I chose for myself after I finished the Academy. A lot of Time Lords and Ladies chose titles at that point, but not all of them…" He trailed off, trying not to lose himself in the swarm of memories his Academy days brought with them. Rose, of course, jumped to the next logical question.

"So, you have a 'real' name, then? Other than the Doctor?" She was looking at him with wide, curious eyes, apparently happy to be learning more about him, but wary of upsetting him; the battle between curiosity and propriety was one he fought often, and though the topic made him a bit flustered, he couldn't hold it against her.

"Welll…..yes," he confirmed. He looked off to the side. "But I can't tell you." He looked back in time to see a slightly hurt look emerge on her features and hurried to explain.

"It's not anything personal, Rose, but—names have power," he informed her quietly. "It's not just you, I can't tell _anyone_ my given name…well, I say _anyone_, but—" And again, definitely not the time to be bringing _that_ up, "—anyway, names have power, especially a Time Lord's name. Our _true_ names encompass and describe the very core of our being, and for anyone else to speak it, or even _know _it, is, well…." He swallowed. _Intimate_, was the word he wanted to use, but… "Dangerous," he said instead.

She nodded, then frowned. "But….if no one but you is allowed to know your name, how did you get it in the first place? And, if you don't choose your own name until you graduate Time Lord School," her lips twitched, apparently amused at the thought of him as a student, "what did people call you in the mean time?" He nodded. Two very good questions—sharp, his Rose was—and he told her so.

"Well, it's a bit complicated, but—Time Lords typically had three names." She raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing, so he continued, "The True name, the one we're Loomed with, is never used—it's something we just…kind of _know,_ up here, from Day One," he tapped his temple. Her newly-healed eyebrow rose to join the other, but she still remained silent. "So then our second name-from birth until graduation, we had, well, nicknames, I guess you could call them." He shrugged. It was a little more complicated than that, but… "At the point of graduation, you had a choice: You could choose to either go by a—_very_—abbreviated form of your true name, or, you could pick a title." He stuck his hands in his pockets. It was obvious which option he'd chosen, and now he was just waiting to see what her reaction would be. As usual, it surprised him.

"So…when you chose your name…you got to pick between a name that told people who you were…and who you wanted to be," she said slowly, with her eyes staring straight into his, and suddenly, even with all of his layers, he felt utterly exposed. That was—she'd cut straight to the heart of the issue in three seconds flat. She'd always seen things about him that he hadn't intended, but this was….

He thought he might have stopped breathing as a soft, adoring look bloomed across her features. "And you chose 'Doctor'," she stated simply as she reached out to take his limp hand in both of hers, running her thumbs across his knuckles. "A man who makes people better."

_Sanctimonious, isn't it? _ The Master's taunting voice seemed to whisper. He shook the thought away like the pest it was.

Meanwhile, Rose threaded her fingers through his, and he found that their joined hands were all he could stand to look at, now, terrified of what her eyes might do to him. Her voice was even quieter as she continued. "Because you do—you fix people. Because that's the kind of man you wanted to be…and that's the kind of man you are." She said it so plainly, as if it were an absolute truth.

After a long moment, he found a portion of his voice.

"Oh….you…..Rose," he croaked, slowly moving his other hand up to join the clasped one. He still couldn't look her in the eye. How could she think of him so….what did she see in him? When he was…

"I'm not," he denied with complete conviction. "I'm really, really not." How could he be, after the things he'd done? The Doctor was only one of his names, after all, and was far outnumbered by the other titles he'd unwillfully earned—Oncoming Storm, Destroyer of Worlds, Killer of His Own Kind…

And then his true name….There was more than one reason he'd picked a title over a shortened version of his real name—because the meaning behind even a shortened version would have sent any of his people running for the hills… So, barely adolescent, still a naïve teen with the whole universe to run in, to explore and escape Gallifrey and what he now knew had always been his fate, he'd chosen his name, just another rebellion, a fantasy, distancing himself from what he would become by picking that title…

"Stop it," she said—no, _commanded_, in such a hard tone that his head jerked up to face her without thinking. Her eyes locked onto his and held him there, and her hands tightened almost painfully on both of his.

"Stop it," she repeated, more quietly but still just as firm. "You can't keep crucifying yourself like that. I can see it in your eyes, what you're thinking—all those scary titles you have, yeah? Well, they're a part of you, but they're not all of who you are—just names given to you by evil things that had every right to fear you, because you were the only one to stand in their way, the only one to stop them." She squeezed his hand, then asked sharply, "who was it that named you the Oncoming Storm?"

"The Daleks…." He said slowly. She nodded once.

"And the Daleks had a name for me too, remember? The Abomination, they called me…" a corner of her lip twisted up in a wry grin. "Personally, I think yours has more of a ring to it, but I suppose they're not really much for creativity…" He stared at her owlishly. There were so many things his mind was trying to digest at the moment—her stubborn refusal to see the truth about him, to which part of his mind was screaming at him to change the subject, because he didn't _want_ her to see the truth, because she'd run—the fact that she'd known that he was thinking about all the ways he _wasn't_ a healer by any means, acknowledged, in fact, that there _was _a part of him that destroyed…yet at the same time, she seemed to accept it, embrace it, even going so far as to suggest that there was a part of her that had become a destroyer, too…

(And the thought that _that _part of himself had somehow transferred over to her by mere association, that he had tainted her with his darkness, and that she was now trying to comfort _him_ by showing him they were similarly corrupted, horrified him more than he could ever express.)

Yet, despite all of the chaos in his mind, curiosity overrode everything else, and a question formed on his lips.

"…When did the Daleks call you…that?" He asked hesitantly. Her faint smile dimmed, and her gaze dropped slightly.

"Ah, at some point, don't remember, " she said in a voice just slightly too strained to be offhand, and she released his hand to wave him off. "It's not important, anyway." She rather abruptly hopped off the table, causing him to take a step back as she moved away and towards the doorway. She shot a brief look back at him, face neutral, then continued walking.

"C'mon, then-let's go find the others, I'm sure they're waiting on us..."

The Doctor blinked at the empty doorway, trying to process her sudden eagerness to get back to the mess outside, before his feet caught up with his head and he began walking swiftly to catch up to her. He knew she had a point-they couldn't stay in here forever, much as he wanted to. He dreaded confronting the Master again, to be honest, but despite his desire to avoid the man, he knew it was his responsibility to handle him, and no one else's. He couldn't run from this...

Wait. _Running away..._

He caught a flash of blonde hair disappearing out the front door of the TARDIS as the belated realization slammed into him. Rose was trying to distract him, dodging—no, _fleeing_, the question.

The Rose he knew faced things head-on, no matter how dangerous or uncomfortable, yet now...

What else had she learned from him?

"Rose, stop, hold on," he called after her. She paused just before the door to the main corridor, though she didn't turn to face him. With no small amount of trepidation, he closed the gap between them with slow steps, which seemed impossibly loud in the dark metal room. His hand came to rest on her shoulder, and she tensed, ever so slightly at the contact. Her hand slowly came up to rest over his, and for a moment, he thought she might push the appendage away. Instead, she just laced her fingers though his again, and drew their joined hands down to hand between them. He squeezed it, and through a careful combination of nudges, steps and tugs, managed to turn them so they were facing each other again. Her carefully blank expression sent a chill down his spine, and he had to swallow before he could speak again.

"Rose..." He let out a long, deep sigh. If she was avoiding the question, there was probably a good reason for it, but it also meant that whatever it was had to be important, and his ever-present curiosity would not let it drop, despite the small foreboding prickle in the back of his mind that suggested he probably should.

"Rose," he began again, his voice as even as he could make it, "when did the Daleks give you a name?" She stared back silently for a long moment, minute expressions flickering just underneath her vague exterior too rapidly for him to catch, before a kind of tired resignation settled in her eyes.

"You should know. You were there, too," she said quietly, gaze pointed somewhere just past his shoulder. The Doctor just stared. She couldn't possibly mean what he thought she meant. There were only three times-that he knew of, at least, he realized with a delayed panic-that a Dalek would have had the opportunity to bestow such a title upon her.

He really, really hoped it wasn't the second time.

After the silence hung in the air for a long moment, and it became clear that the Doctor wasn't going to reply, Rose just gave a small, tired sigh and looked away completely. When she spoke again, her voice gave away nothing. But the words themselves were enough.

"Satellite Five."

Of course it would be, some distant part of his still rational mind informed him dryly, while the rest of him reeled. The Doctor could vaguely recall the Dalek Emperor screeching something at the terrifying golden goddess that had stepped out of his TARDIS, occupying the space where Rose should be, right before she had wiped the warped Dalek and his entire fleet from exsistence with a wave of her hand. Many extraneous details of that day had been lost from the nasty combination of the Vortex and Regeneration Energy burning through his mind, but what images remained had been seared behind brand-new eyelids forever.

The fact was: he was a Time Lord, with a mind already equipped to handle the burn of time, though not on such a scale. And yet, even parts of his memory from that time were spotty at best. For her human mind to have remembered any of it was...

"But you… you don't even _remember_…" he denied, because it simply was not possible. She turned back and stared at him, the non-verbal _"Really?"_ written all over her face, and he was reminded yet again that she and impossible were practically best friends; her very presence in this Universe was proof enough of that. . .

"Satellite Five?" She repeated. He nodded slowly, though he dreaded the answer. "I remember…" she trailed off, and he waited on tenterhooks for words like "golden light" and "fire" and "singing" and "pain".

What he got was so much worse.

"... everything," she finished, and the haunted look her eyes had developed made his stomach drop. (Though there was just the tiniest bit of relief, as well. If she really had remembered what exactly she'd done and felt_ nothing_, he wouldn't have known what to think…)

A fine tremor ran through her entire form. "At one point, I just remembered….everything…and more," she whispered, breaking his gaze. His eyes fell closed without the power of her stare to sustain them, and he felt every single one of his years bearing down on him.

Though their hands were still connected, The Doctor was a million miles away from the here and now, his mind trying to swallow everything he'd had revealed to him and picked up on from the second he'd seen Rose lying on the floor of his ship, let himself contemplate all of the horrible fears and worries about what had happened that day that he'd purposefully ignored before, and the conclusions he arrived at nearly made him physically ill.

"Oh, Rose…." He whispered, heartbroken. She looked back up and his mind finally allowed him to see everything his eyes had picked up on right away. She still looked so, so beautiful—not a wrinkle in sight…exactly, _impossibly_, the same….as if she hadn't aged a single day…

Her face still looked so, _so_ young…

But her eyes looked so, so old.

"How?" Was all he said. He had so many questions, but most of them began with this one word. He'd let her answer whichever one she wanted.

"It's like you said," she began after a long, grave silence, staring at that invisible point over his shoulder again. "Names have power, yeah? The names we're born with, the names we're given—and even the names we give ourselves," she said pointedly, eyes focusing back to his and holding. He nodded once and waited for her to continue, silent.

"Now, there's only one name I've ever given myself, and the power it has had over me, even I don't know the full extent of. But you knew, didn't you?" she said shrewdly, not quite accusing, but he felt his palm in hers was suddenly much too clammy and his hearts kicked up in tempo. He had a good idea of what she was leading up to, and he didn't like it one bit. She continued, either oblivious to his growing unease, or entirely aware and deliberately feeding it.

"Because in the back of your mind, that corner where you put the things you don't want to look too closely at, to acknowledge—that fact had to have been there, burning. The fact that I had held all of Time and Space in the palm of my hand, bent it to my will, saw infinity. That what you saw me do on the Gamestation couldn't possibly have been the _only_ thing I did in that state, when I was Everywhere and Everywhen, but, the thing was, you had no way of determining the scope of it." Her voice was growing in speed and volume, and the Doctor had the oddest sensation of falling, as if the ground was being pulled out from underneath him, as if he was strapped in to a rollercoaster and only realized now, at the crest of the hill, that he'd very much like to get off now, thank you, but could do nothing more than brace himself and endure the ride. It was knowing exactly what was about to happen and being powerless to stop it. It was a total loss of control.

And that…._that…_

"And that terrified you," Rose unwittingly finished for him, naming the exact emotion welling in him then and now. "It terrified me, too," she admitted quietly. There was a look in her eyes, half-resigned, half-amused, that he didn't quite understand until she continued, "Even all the way back in Scotland, the wolf there, he saw it in me. Told me that I burned like the Sun," she quoted, and the Doctor stiffened.

_Even_ then?_ How could he have missed—but he'd taken—he'd thought he'd fixed…_

"Later that night was the first time I remembered anything from that moment," she continued, while guilt began to nestle in his chest alongside the fear, fear of what he had put her through from sheer negligence…of what it had done to her, of what she had become…

"I got little pieces, here and there, after… But it was years before I really saw, that I really began to understand…" she looked away again, distant. "To remember. That it was a part of me—that it was still there, and it's always been there, that name, that power, those words…"

_No, no, no, oh please, Rose, no…_

When she looked back to him, he noticed for the first time that her once hazel eyes were flecked with gold...

"…Bad Wolf."

o0o0o0o0o

Some part of Jack was aware that he had been struck speechless. It was an odd feeling, that same detached part mused, and certainly not very familiar to him—so few things surprised him anymore—even dying barely phased him.

Yet here he was, gaping silently at an ever-increasingly panicking Tony Tyler, as the boy tried frantically to apologize and explain, and, probably, get him to respond. Jack's mind finally recovered enough to match the sounds washing over him to the words coming out of the redhead's mouth.

"—I swear, it's not as bad as it sounds, and it's something you agreed to, besides! You know, even if you never were the most obedient Time Agent, even you knew the importance of keeping timelines straight—and now that we're all matched up timeline-wise, we can unlock them. Your 'lost' memories, I mean. Well, Rose can, but—"

"Stop," Jack said without really thinking about it, holding up a hand to stem the tide of words flowing from the boy's mouth and give him a chance to process this revelation so he could actually respond. Thankfully, his mouth snapped shut, though there was now a hint of annoyance warring with the concern on his freckled face.

Jack blinked once. Twice. Three times. He took a deep, slow breath.

Okay, then.

"Let me make sure I understand this correctly," he began in an even tone, quite different from his usual (sometimes faked) buoyant charm. Tony winced, but allowed him to continue without interruption. "I am missing two years of my life because I was spending them with you and Rose, before I'd met either of you, and I _asked _you—or Rose, rather-to hide them—and I'm very curious to know how she did that, by the way, since she wasn't telepathic last I checked—in order to keep the timelines intact, so I could go _on_ to meet Rose and the Doctor, who I definitely didn't know at the time?" A beat, then:

"Pretty much, yeah." Tony shrugged. Jack stuck his hands in his coat pockets.

"Huh," was all he had to say. Tony raised his eyebrows, surprised, then tilted his head to the side, curious.

"You're not…angry?" Jack considered it. Was he?

"No, not really," was his somewhat-surprised, automatic answer. And the more he thought about it, the more true it was. While those missing two years had certainly haunted him for quite some time, his anger and fear at their loss had been relegated to the back of his mind, a distant reminder that once, two years had seemed a significant amount of time.

"I'd honestly gotten over it years ago," he admitted, something odd beginning to bubble in his chest as he spoke. He thought it might be joy. "But I sure as hell want them back now that I know they're _good_ memories, and now I can, 'cause they're locked, not retconned-away like I thought," he grinned. Tony grinned right back, though it was more subdued than his own. Jack was nearly bouncing on his feet. "So, two years' worth of memories with you and Rose? Travelling all over, saving the world, going on interplanetary pub-crawls?"

Tony barked a laugh. "Got it in one, though that last bit was mostly you," he added dryly.

"What, you mean I never smuggled back any hypervodka for you? Seems awfully responsible of me," he mused. Tony rolled his eyes.

"_One_ of us had to be sober enough to fly the getaway-ship when you inevitably flirted with the wrong person and set a small army of bodyguards on our tail," he informed him, crossing his leather-clad arms across his chest in a way so reminiscent of Jack's first Doctor that he nearly burst out laughing. "And yes, that happened more than once," he added with a shake of his head. Jack just smirked.

"And where was Rose when this happened?" Jack asked. God, it sounded like they'd had fun together…and two years! The months that he'd spent with the Doctor and Rose were honestly some of the happiest times he'd ever had, and while he'd only be remembering something he already lived through, he also knew that now that Rose was back, she wouldn't let the Doctor just leave him again, or at least, not without coming back to visit…

"Rose was always the one that had to drag your arse back to the ship, of course. Well, except for that one time that you'd _both_ had too much and got thrown into jail on Mandolaxis Prime, and I had to come bail you out, and let me tell you, trying to negotiate with a burly Mandolaxian when you look like a twelve-year-old kid is no easy feat…" Jack snorted in amusement.

"Look like? You _are_ a kid, kid," Jack reminded him, and, just because he was sure to hate it, reached down to ruffle his fluffy ginger hair. He was rewarded with a scowl.

"I'm not a kid," he enunciated carefully, glaring. Jack just ruffled his hair harder. Tony scowled deeper and ducked under the hand, finger-combing it back down into some semblance of order. Jack rolled his eyes.

"Oh, sorry, _teenager_, then," he amended. Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut.

"No,_ really_," he sighed, "I'm not a kid. I'm not as young as—"

"Hey, where did the Doctor disappear to?"

Tony and Jack both jumped at the sudden appearance of Martha—Jack, because he'd been facing the other way, and Tony, because he'd had his eyes shut. Martha rolled her eyes at their skittishness, but refrained from commenting. She looked like she was about to ask Jack something when she did a double take at Tony and stepped towards him in concern.

"Hey, woah now, should you really be up? I _definitely_ saw you get shot at least once, maybe more…"

Tony eyed her warily, taking half a step back. "Ah, well, yes, but," he stammered, "I…got better." Martha stared.

"You….got better. From a _gunshot_ wound." Martha's eyes flickered to Jack, then to Tony, and back again.

"Is he like…" Martha asked in a stage whisper, gesturing vaguely towards Jack, whose brow rose sharply. His first instinct was to say _Of course not_, but then Tony's half-finished sentence finally registered in his head.

_Wait, wait! 'I'm not as young as'—what? As I used to be? As I feel? As I _look?

Now unsure himself, Jack turned with Martha to look at Tony in askance. The—boy?—in question looked mildly chagrined, but didn't look away.

"Tony…?" Jack started hesitantly, unsure of just what to ask him. Tony's eyes darted between the two of them and, after settling on Martha, he cleared his throat.

"I was shot just as time began reversing, so that took care of most of the damage," he told her succinctly, answering one question and avoiding the other. He pulled up the bottom of his coat to reveal his healed skin. "And a Dermal Regenerator took care of the rest." He let the coat drop back in place.

Martha still looked slightly skeptical, but let it drop. "Right…" she drawled, then seemed to shake herself. "Right," she said again, with more purpose, "Some group called UNIT just arrived and seemed to be getting everything sorted," she told them, then turned slightly towards the podium, lips thinned. "The only thing left is to figure out what to do with _him_," she said darkly, jerking her thumb towards the now-revived Time Lord, who was restrained on either side by guards, but was making no moves to escape. That alone would have worried Jack, but the fact that the Master was still smirking and seemed to be chatting conversationally with the blank-faced guards beside him, and, every now and again, Lucy (who still looked out of it, though a sheen of fear was now dripping down her face) made him shiver.

If it were up to him, he honestly would have considered just killing him and getting it over with. He knew, instinctively, that this was the type of person you just couldn't keep locked up, not for long, anyway. He was too cunning by half, sociopathic, and utterly insane—an intelligent madness, and definitely vengeful. If (when) he broke out, there would be hell to pay…

Luckily (for the bastard of a Time Lord, or everyone else, he wasn't sure) it _wasn't _up to him, or anyone here, what would happen to the Master. And though he wasn't sure he trusted the Doctor to be harsh enough on his once-friend, he _did_ know that the only one even remotely capable of ensuring the deranged alien would never be unleashed again was his fellow Time Lord.

Jack nodded towards Martha, then began walking towards the podium. "_We_ won't be doing anything to him. Let's let UNIT know the Doctor—"

A lone shot rang out, and Lucy screamed.

"Down!" Jack ducked instinctively, pulling Martha and Tony with him.

Chaos reigned again.

o0o0o0o0o

_Muahaha….Yes, I know I have a bad habit of leaving cliff-hangers. So, in case you haven't noticed by now, I tend to alternate between more action-y scenes and introspective/conversational ones. This chapter was heavier on the second one, but I think it's warranted, given all the back-story I'll need to fit in here and there (but I'll try not to bog down the pacing too much—let me know how I'm doing, please!)_

_So, some questions answered, more raised. Please note that my explanation for Time-Lord naming is not "canon", if such a thing exists in DW, but was more of me making sense of the rather inconsistent naming-habits of Time Lords. But please do let me know if I ever get something totally wrong. I'm a newish fan, and half of my knowledge of canon is from fanon, so there might be some things off there…_

_Anyway. Consider reviewing! Almost as good for my brain as a superheated infusion of tannins and free-radicals…_


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